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At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, Africa is the world’s second largest and with 1.2 billion people as of 2016, second most-populous continent (behind Asia in both categories). It covers 6% of Earth’s total surface area and 20% of its land area. Its population accounts for about 16% of the world’s human population.

Africa boasts perhaps the world’s largest combination of density and “range of freedom” of wild animal populations and diversity, with wild populations of large carnivores (such as lions, hyenas, and cheetahs) and herbivores (such as buffalo, elephants, camels, and giraffes) ranging freely on primarily open non-private plains. It is also home to a variety of “jungle” animals including snakes and primates and aquatic life such as crocodiles and amphibians. In addition, Africa has the largest number of megafauna species, as it was least affected by the extinction of the Pleistocene megafauna.

The cheetah (scientific name: Acinonyx jubatus) is a large cat of the subfamily Felinae, which specialized for high speed. Cheetahs live in North and East Africa, and a few localities in Iran. Here are 20 amazing cheetah facts.

NASA has published some interesting statistics about the world’s sandy beaches on Earth Observatory webpage. According to the images taken by Landsat satellites Notes 1 (Landsat 5 and Landsat 8 Notes 2, 3), about 31 percent of the world’s coastlines are sandy. Africa has the highest proportion of sandy beaches (66 percent) and Europe has the lowest (22 percent).

Thanks to improvements in healthcare and many other areas, people today are living longer, healthier, and happier lives than ever before. And what’s more, these improvements are global. It’s happening in the developing countries as well. Africa, the poorest continent (eighteen of the poorest countries by GDP per capita are in Africa) is also no exception: the Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) declined significantly between 1960 and 2001.

For example, in Ethiopia, as late as 1980, almost a quarter of the children died before their fifth birthday. Today, fewer than 6% die, which is still far too many, but the numbers continue to fall. And vaccines play a very crucial part here. But, supplying vaccines to distant clinics in hot climates served by poorly developed transport networks is a big problem. The vaccines must be kept between 2 and 8° C (36 to 46 °F). They need to be distributed in a temperature-controlled supply chain, which is called “cold chain”. Now, there are two new innovations addressing this problem.

One of them is MetaFridge, a cooler which allows them vaccines to stay between 2 and 8° C (36 to 46 °F) for days, even if the power is out.

One day back in 2005, Dr. Julian Bayliss was sitting at his laptop looking at Google Earth in 2005, to look for potential unknown wildlife hotspots in Africa. He was working an isolated mountain in Malawi, then he noticed that there were similar mountains over the border in Mozambique. There was nothing written about these mountains. As he zoomed in, he saw a dark green patch suddenly emerge, which looked like a rainforest. An expedition was scheduled, and it turned out to be just that: a rainforest, which was unknown to plant and animal scientists. Today, Mount Mabu forest is frequently referred to as the “Google Forest”.

43% of Americans would be more likely to donate to an endangered species if it were cute, according to a study titled “Selective Sympathy: Comparing Sentiment Toward the Appearance of Endangered Species” published by African Wildlife Foundation (AWF). A team at AWF has surveyed 1k Americans on how much they know about wildlife conservation, and how much they’re willing to open their wallets to help endangered animals. Here’s what they found:

The Lion (Panthera leo) is the second largest cat in the world, after the tiger. The lion and tiger are closely related and they share a very similar body type. As its scientific name suggests, Lion is one of the five members of the Panthera genus.Notes 1 Here are 20 amazing lion facts.

On Sunday, January 07, 2018, the residents of Aïn Séfra, a small town in Algeria, experienced a rare phenomenon: snow in Sahara, world’s hottest desert. In the video below, published by the National Geographic, snow dusted the desert’s sandy dunes. With temperatures touching 33.8 degrees Fahrenheit (1 °C), this white blanket stayed briefly through the morning before melting away. However, a few residents found the opportunity to enjoy some winter fun.

Crocodiles are aquatic reptiles, and among the most feared carnivores on Earth, because of their size, big powerful jaws and aggressiveness. They are so successful predators – once they were living alongside the dinosaurs. After the Chicxulub impact, which happened around 66 million years ago, the non-avian dinosaurs were gone but crocodiles were managed to survive. Here are top 20 amazing crocodile facts about these fascinating beasts.